Another picture of Seth on the side ------------->

Taking deep calming breaths, Keely got dressed the next day.

It was going to be her first day in the studio, and she was almost vibrating with nervous energy. But at least she got to sleep in until eleven because the Maureen hadn't booked the studio until one.

Today she dressed very casually, not truly knowing what to expect when she got into the studio

So she pulled on a black t-shirt that's sleeves hit her elbows and had a scooped up neck with navy blue sweatpants. It was loose around her skinny waist, and wrinkled down over her hips, but was casual to her purpose. She pulled on her mother's long medallion necklace that fell right underneath her breasts. Yawning, she shoved her feet in black flip flops and pushed on grey aviator sunglasses.

In a hurry still, Keely pulled her straight hair into a low pony-tail and let the bangs fall out, rushing down to the lobby where Dave would be waiting, her things in tow in the shoulder bag she wore.

"Thanks," Keely told Dave vaguely when he dropped her off.

As she walked into the studio, Keely looked down at her phone, and not just because she wanted to look as if she was busy. Miss Jones had sent her an email telling her which recording studio the guys and her would be in today. And sure enough, there it was, studio number three.

But as she went to open the door, Keely had to take another one of those calming breaths.

Because she was going to have to deal with Seth today, whether she and he liked it or not. And he had probably told Marco and Colton all about her crying fit, already, Keely felt herself flushing.

"Hey," Keely said with a smile pushing open the door.

"Hey dude," Marco said sitting at the control panel looking intently down upon it while Colton said his hello sitting relaxed with a water bottle dangling from his fingers.

Rolling her eyes, Keely dropped her bag on the chair beside Colton. "So where's your third part? Seth?" it was hard to say his name, Keely almost chocked on it.

“He got arrested last night, and is now sleeping off the bender at his apartment,” Colton told her, snorting.

“What?” Keely yelped, her eyes bulging, “He got arrested?”

Marco shrugged, not bothering to look back. “Happens at least twice a month lately, this time it was for public drunkenness.”

She sighed with relief. It still felt strange to her that a guy who played pop music like Seth Ryan could manage to pull of the bad boy so well; she may not have paid attention to them before in Bellingham, but she remembered seeing more than one – well, more than fifty – magazines with him on cover, talking about his drinking, fighting or getting arrested, some times all three at once.

Suddenly feeling all the more relaxed because he wouldn't be there, Keely finally looked through the window that lead into the actual studio. It was a gorgeous open space, instruments strewn about admiss the wooden walls. Apart from the large room, there were separate booths lining the walls, most likely for vocals or at least solitary playing from what she guessed. But Keely wasn't exactly an expert on the going ons in the studio, yet.

Twirling around in his seat, Marco grinned at her. "I think I detect some happiness there? What, don't like the third in N.S.R?"

"The feeling is mutual," she assured him rolling her eyes. "And it's mostly hate, your guy is kind of a jack ass."

"Ah, that we know," Colt said wisely.

Laughing, Keely finally pulled of her sunglasses, feeling a bit ridiculous for wearing the aviators inside. "So what are we going to do today?" she asked, already feeling more confident.

"Do scales, warm up your voice," Marco said instantly.

"Yes sir," she laughed lightheartedly.

As she sang, Keely narrowed her eyes confused at the boys since they were exchanging meaningful little glances. Now, what the hell did that mean? But every time she stopped singing to ask them what was going on, Marco or Colton would scold her and get her to sing more.

She really would have liked to know what was going on.

In the end, they didn't even end up using the studio, which seemed like kind of a waste if you asked Keely, but no one did. They spent the time fine tuning the song that they would record first. Keely was actually quite thankful for that, because while she was great at singing, good at the guitar and piano, her actual knowledge of the drums and bass was quite limited.

“Yeah, I think we're done for the day,” Marco proclaimed, stretching his arms out as he yawned widely.

She just looked at the two closely, thinking about the future. "What do we do for the other parts of the song? I mean, I can handle the vocals, obviously, plus the guitar and piano if need be, but nothing else."

"You want to be a part of that?" Colt asked in surprise.

Confused, she dropped the pencil she'd been using to scribble all over her page, to look at them. "Of course I do," she said with a minute delay.

"Oh, okay," Marco seemed a bit confused. "It's just that singers we've worked with usually do the vocals and then leave it to the producer to get the tracks for the instruments."

Rolling her eyes yet again, Keely laughed. "I guess I'm not like other singers, I want to be a part of every little part of this album. I want to watch every note get played before I let it go on my album, I want to know about everything."

"You play the piano?" Marco enquired interestedly, thinking about her comment before.

"Never professionally trained, until the last week before I came here," she shrugged.

Being the straight-forward guy he was, Colton said bluntly, "Are you any good?"

Just a week or two ago, Keely would have said, 'No, probably not, it's just a hobby, you know?' But now she was feeling more confident than ever, maybe it was just being free. "I'm not great," she reserved herself for modesty. "But I wouldn't say that I'm terrible either.”

Another thought occurred to her, and she looked back to the boys. "Are you guys the kind that just does the vocals and the guitar? I know what you play, remember I did see you in concert once."

"No," Marco smiled at her seeming pleased. "We are a part of everything that goes into our albums."

"Huh..." she murmured quietly.

It was Colton's turn to grin, "Seriously Keel, we're not as bad as you seem to think."

Holding up her hands again, she laughed, "Sorry, assumptions are dangerous."

"Yeah, they are," but Marco didn't seem that offended as he looked down at his watch. "It's six, do you want to go grab some sushi together or something? I mean, might as well finish the day together."

"Sounds great to me," Keely grabbed her computer.

"I love sushi," Keely moaned in pleasure as she took a bite of the first delicious roll.

They were sitting at a table in the corner, with four chairs, though the fourth was still unoccupied. Keely was sitting cross-legged as usual while using her chop sticks expertly, and the boys were sitting across from her, though not as deft with the utensils.

"Okay," Colt said finally after minutes of the companionable silence.

"Yeah?" she asked in surprise, dropping have of the roll onto her plate when he talked.

"We've got something to ask you," Marco put in.

"I kind of figured that one out myself," said she dryly.

Marco rolled his eyes at her easily, after a long look between him and Colton, it seemed to be decided that it would be his job to talk, because it was him that continued.

"We like your voice," he said slowly. And even though Keely didn't like their music, she felt a little flame of pride underneath her heart. Because even if their music wasn't exactly to her taste, she could tell they were very talented, and at the least very knowledgeable.

"Yeah?" her voice was cautious.

Impatient, Colton cut in. "And we want to record a duet with you, we've had this song in mind for a long time."

"Ah," instead of just cautious, her voice was slow with indecision as well now. "You know I really like hanging out with you guys and everything, plus I was kind of surprised that I like you two so much. But your music isn't really my style, and it's not something I really want to sing."

"You doing a duet with Marissa," Colton pointed out.

She raised an eyebrow at his persistence, there was a lot of other singers. "I also re-wrote the song, until it was passable in my book."

"Ever wonder why we don't get insulted at your hate for our music?" Marco grinned.

The answering smile on Keely's face as she looked at him was uncontrollable. "Ah, I just assumed that you guys got it a lot. Because if someone ever insulted the music I write and sing I might kill them, same for my music at home."

"No, we don't get it a lot," Marco murmured. "This is the album we're changing it around, we've been working non-stop on the thing, making it perfect. You can listen to it if you want. As for our music being so awful, we just kind of forgot about it for our first two albums."

"I have no idea how you could forget that," Keely retorted.

"Things piled up, and we just started playing the music, not really thinking about it," Colton pushed in.

"What kind of things?"

But Marco shook his head, "That we're not going to tell you. Sorry, Keel," he sent her a charming smile, and Keely found a responding smile come onto her lips. "Maybe in a couple dozen years."

Accepting the fact that they weren't going to tell her was easy for Keely, because it wasn't like she was about to pour out her soul to them about her mother, father and Joe. "So you guys don't have the most terrible taste in music," she smiled leaning back in her seat.

Marco laughed, "No, we really don't. We really are changing up our sound and I think you'd be perfect to help us to do it."

"Plus," Colton added. "Though you'd be selling it to the younger generation initially, it would get you a big fan base singing with us. And then you could show these kids good music."

"You could be a politician," she teased.

"So will you do it?" Marco enquired.

"Just helping you to change your sound was good enough for me," grinned Keely. "Plus, Colton is a good sales man. But I want to hear the song first," she warned.

"And if you don't like it, you won't sing it," finished Colt.

She shrugged, looking at them apologetically from underneath her long black eyelashes. "I get your point Colt, but touching one person with a great meaningful song that might change their life like music did for me is much more important than playing one crappy song and getting a huge fan base."

"I really do like you," Marco decided. He just kept the fact that it was Seth who had written the song to himself. "Now we just have to tell Seth."

"Seth?"

"He's our lead singer and lead guitarist," Colt reminded her. "Even if my boy adds in a bit. But we had decided before that he would sing the song with his girlfriend of the week, Rachael Gosling."

Now she felt a bit like a cheater, how could she take something away from another person like that? Holding up her hands, Keely shook her head. "I would like to play a song with you guys, but I'm not taking it away from her."

"She doesn't even know about the song yet," said Marco soothingly.

"Why do you want my voice for it?" she relaxed, dropping her hands and leaning forward.

"Rachael has a nice voice," he started. "It's really sweet, I guess, a bit like Marissa's. But Colt and I think that your voice would be a better fit, for the song as well as with Seth's voice. Even if you two hate each other."

- Pretty short chapter, but whatever. I posted, yay!

I went to see Planet of The Apes yesterday. I didn't actually want to go see it that much, but it has James Franco, and, c'mon, it's JAMES FRANCO! He's an awesome actor, that's all I've got to say. I've never actually watched another Apes movie, so I'm asking anyone who has, is that movie supposed to explain how earth became a planet for the apes? Because I don't really understand... I'm pretty sure they're going to make a second one, but if there's no James Franco, totally not going to see it.

Advice... don't shove the concert tickets for the Foo Fighters in the face of your neighbour, because he might find it funny to grab them from you and hold them up over your head while threatening to rip them because you were so-called "being mean". And it doesn't help when you're about five two and he's at least six feet, maybe taller.

I literally had to climb onto his couch and jump on his back to get them back. I was pretty violent actually.

But what can I say? He took my concert tickets! 

Hm... I think my rant can end here.